---
title: The finest man among them, whom Ali Baba took to be their captain, w… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The finest man among them, whom Ali Baba took to be their captain, went a little way among some bushes, and said: “Open, Sesame!” Who acts: finest man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 7

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The finest man among them, whom Ali Baba took to be their captain, went a little way among some bushes, and said: “Open, Sesame!”

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**Who acts:** finest man · **What happens:** take, be, go, say · **To what, where:** captain, little way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (finest man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg503:34:7
# text = The finest man among them, whom Ali Baba took to be their captain, went a little way among some bushes, and said: “Open, Sesame!”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	finest	fine	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	among	among	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	obj	_	_
8	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	flat	_	_
10	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	among	among	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	22	det	_	_
22	bushes	bush	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	28	punct	_	_
27	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	Open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	Sesame	sesame	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | the finest man among horses |  |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument whom=Destination |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | men's captain |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | past | the finest man among horses *not said here* | a little way |  |  |  | among some bushes | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location way=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the finest man among horses *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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